There are a few things every household has.

A bathroom.

A front door.

A junk drawer.

Having a junk drawer is Housekeeping 101. There has to be a place to throw all those extra ketchup packets, obsolete paper take-out menus, twist ties and odd kitchen tools.

I’ve watched a few YouTube videos where overachievers empty out a junk drawer, buy expensive plastic inserts and put everything back nice and neat.

Go ahead and spend all that money on fancy dividers, but in two weeks, that drawer will revert to its original reason for existing – storing junk.

Things will migrate into chaos, but that’s okay. It’s a junk drawer and half the fun is rummaging around in there because you find all kinds of treasures while looking for what you want.

On a hot afternoon, I decided to straighten out a few messy places in the house. I went through the place where I keep dust rags and old towels. I threw away the ones with lots of rips and holes and kept the ones with only a few holes.

Then I spotted the junk drawer. I opened it and looked around. I had a couple of dividers in there, but those had been buried underneath junk years ago.

Instead of dreading cleaning out this drawer, much as I had with the old rags and towels, cleaning out the junk drawer was like being on a treasure hunt without the threat of quicksand or venomous snakes.

I started rummaging around. I found a 9-volt battery and one Batman walkie-talkie. Underneath those were a few small screwdrivers.

These are the ones that fit perfectly in kids’ toys. Must’ve been why I tossed that 9-volt battery and the walkie-talkie in here.

I found dozens of twist ties. I keep those because they come in handy when tying the strands of Christmas lights together before storing them for the year.

There were at least a dozen assorted small screws and nails. No use sorting those, I thought, and left them in the bottom of the drawer along with extra buttons, drapery hooks, nails, thumb tacks and paper clips.

Then I found something I’d been looking for since last year – extra matches.

At the last birthday party, none of us had any matches or a lighter. I remember when every restaurant had a bowl filled with matches by the cash register. Not anymore.

So I bought a 12-pack of matches, and then tossed them in the junk drawer. I hope the next time we have a birthday party I can remember where I put them.

I must have a thing for glue because I found three or four glue sticks – all dried up, of course — some kind of bond adhesive, caulk, Gorilla glue and a package of Super Glue. None of these, by the way, ever work for me.

There’s a set of pliers in here, along with a hammer and my dad’s beat-up flat-head and Phillips screwdrivers.

There’s also a few cheap metal wrenches that come with furniture. You’re supposed to throw them away, but those of us who can’t stand throwing things away – remember the towels with holes – believe those little wrenches could come in handy one day.

That day hasn’t come yet, but I’m hopeful.

There’s a role of kite string in the drawer. When I picked it up, I smiled, remembering when we took our son’s Cub Scout group kite flying.

The boy in the group who wasn’t the fastest or the strongest turned out to be the best kite flyer in the bunch. He got his kite up higher and faster than all the other Scouts.

That string is a reminder of fun days and fun times. And maybe that’s what most of the things in a junk drawer are for – they remind us of some happy memory.

Putting together a bookshelf with a small child, blowing out birthday candles or watching a shy child come into his own because we found a place where he could shine.

I closed the drawer without straightening anything out. A messy drawer is exactly what’s it designed to be – a place for memories.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.